The Bach Period (score)

SKU: BR.EB-8229

ISBN 9790004175668. 9 x 12 inches.

If you look at the first bars of Ansgar Krauses arrangement (and transposition to E-minor) of the E-flat minor Prelude from Bachs Well-Tempered Clavier I and forget the famous original for a moment, you might think that the piece was originally written for guitar. Equally idiomatic are the arrangements of the other preludes in this collection, which Ansgar Krause has hand-tailored to his instrument. They stem chiefly either from the Well-Tempered Clavier or the Six Little Preludes BWV 933-938.

SKU: HL.49045639

ISBN 9781540004796. UPC: 888680710774. 9.5x12.0x0.37 inches.

Chaconne (2016), for string quartet, was commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The commission was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and Aaron Copland Fund for Music.My music has a substantial history with Daedalus. I composed the Third String Quartet (2008) for them, and subsequently they performed my three string quartets on several occasions and recorded them brilliantly on Bridge Records (Bridge 9352: Music of Fred Lerdahl, vol. 3). Chaconne is in one movement lasting 19 minutes. It is effectively my fourth string quartet. Quartets 1-3 form a unified cycle lasting 70 minutes. When I finished the cycle, I thought I would never write again for the medium; yet I could not resist the opportunity of working again with Daedalus. The issue was how to compose another string quartet unrelated to the earlier cycle. The solution came from my solo cello piece There and Back Again (2010), which was based on a four-bar variation pattern from a 17th-century chaconne. Unlike the asymmetrical phrases and expanding variations of much of my music, the chaconne form requires symmetrical phrases and strictly periodic variations. I wished to work again with these symmetries but on a larger scale. Chaconne also differs in character and expression from the three-quartet cycle. The cycle is inward and intense, a kind of psychological excavation. Chaconne is, for the most part, transparent and playful. Many of its textures emerge from little canons, not completely unlike the rounds that children sing. Any composer who writes in chaconne form (one thinks above all of the last movement of Bach's D minor violin partita and the finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony) is confronted with the challenge of how to create a larger form out of a constantly repeating pattern.My Chaconne grows from paired antecedent-consequent phrases, each variation lasting eight bars. The 50 variations group into three large rotations, forming three arcs of tension and relaxation, with subtle parallel connections across the rotations. Notwithstanding my attraction to chaconne form, I purposefully disguised its symmetries and periodicities in order to build an overall dramatic shape. Fred Lerdahl.

SKU: BR.EB-4323

ISBN 9790004162774. 9 x 12 inches.

Busoni's Bach Advanced SchoolIn October 1909, Breitkopf & Hartel succeeded in winning Ferruccio Busoni for the edition of Johann Sebastian Bach's piano works. Busoni had studied the music of Bach more intensively than almost any other artist of his time had. As a pianist, arranger, theorist and pedagogue, Busoni was instrumental in bringing Bach out of the 19th century and into the 20th century. That same year, Busoni and two collaborators, Bruno Mugellini and Egon Petri, began work on the instructive edition, which was to comprise 25 volumes. The first volumes were published in the spring of 1916, and in May 1923, the Bach Advanced School project was finally completed. This also marked the end of Busoni's thirty-year-long creative involvement with Bach's works, the impact of which still reaches far beyond the Bach-Busoni formula.All alterations and additions pursue the educational intent of affording the student insight into the mechanism of the composition. Moreover, they illustrate and supplement the views presented only in a sketchy manner in the introductions. In several cases, it takes the sum of the comments on the various pieces to constitute the all-encompassing opinion on one and the same question. (Ferruccio Busoni).

SKU: CA.3122791

Key: E minor. German. Text: Johann Frank.

For many choral singers Jesu, meine Freude is not just a motet by Bach, but the motet par excellence. Bach's motets as a whole have to be described as exceptional works, but even amongst these this is an exceptional work which is out of the ordinary not only in terms of its length. The formal conception, with its alternating chorale and Bible verses in 11 sections in a symmetrical structure, is also unique. The motet was very probably composed for a funeral, but no further details about this are known. By comparison, there are clear indications that the motet, as we now know it, was probably not composed in one go, but was composed over a long period of time. Score available separately - see item CA.3122700.

SKU: BR.EB-8809

You will find supplementary material online

Baroque period. Score. 184 pages. Breitkopf and Haertel #EB 8809. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.EB-8809).

ISBN 9790004183786. 12.5 x 10 inches.

The now-published volumes 9 and 10 have presented a special challenge, for particularly in the field of the chorale arrangements the transmissions are more complex than in any other group of works. This ties in with the crucial question of Bach's authorship, which has been the subject of much controversy in the past. There were heated discussions about it even just prior to our edition, and editors and publisher are aware that the present selection is a thoroughly debatable snapshot. More on this in the volumes' text sections. The situation of the chorale partitas is not quite so dramatic, whereby these holdings also had to be subdivided for reasons of transmission into main section, appendix, and online presentation. The so called ,,Neumeister-Chorale are incorporated in the group of the separately transmitted chorale settings in alphabetical order, because the compilation of the pieces does not follow any collection idea of Bach (such as, for example, his larger late collections). The indication ,,Neumeister-Sammlung should facilitate the attribution. Those works requiring further research, besides of some versions, are presented online, since their profile reveals less evidence of the true author. Breitkopf has given the world a splendid edition of the organ works of Bach. These final two volumes offer a wealth of chorale-based music benefiting from the very latest research. Aside from the edition's obvious scholarly merit, a practicing church organist will love the convenience and variety of these volumes. Recommended without hesitation.(Jonathan B. Hall, The American Organist).

SKU: BR.EB-6773

ISBN 9790004169728. 9 x 12 inches.

The pieces contained in the present volume provide a link between the easy, dance-like movements contained in the Anna Magdalena Bach Book and the two-part inventions. The text corresponds very largely to that of the original source; missing dynamic and tempo markings must be supplied by the player himself in accordance with the character of each piece. The training of the student's feeling for style must begin here, his technical capabilities being taken into account. The occasionally simplified ornaments can also be treated in this manner. The fingerings are intended as suggestions for small hands; they must, of course, be adapted to the particular player's hands, taking tempo and phrasing into consideration. The editor has attempted to solve the problems of phrasing and articulation by means of his own suggestions, but without cluttering the text too much. Various alternative solutions (as indicated in no. 3) are possible, and should - insofar as they make musical sense- be realized in practice. By independently choosing a phrasing and writing it into the music himself, the student improves his unterstanding of the polyphonic structure and the form. Heinz Walter, Salzburg, Spring 1977.

SKU: BR.EB-9035

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You will find supplementary material online

ISBN 9790004187388. 12.5 x 10 inches.

After years of intensive research, the edition of the Complete Organ Works of Johann Sebastian Bach has come to an end. The 10 volumes of this new standard-setting edition are also available in a practical slipcase and at a very attractive price.

Bach organ works complete, and at Breitkopf quality: indispensable for every organist!